


Study session

by Aegiswarrior



Category: Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, first year gang hanging out, mildly implied naoto/rise, thats it thats the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25255996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegiswarrior/pseuds/Aegiswarrior
Summary: Rise drags Kanji and Naoto to her house to study. They're pretty bad at it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Study session

It was meant to be a study session. It had seemed a smart idea at the time, for Rise to badger Naoto and Kanji into coming over to her place after school, seeing as how exams are coming up faster than any of them would like, and their last attempt at group study hadn’t quite been successful. Well. It had mainly seemed like a good idea for her to drag Naoto over, seeing as how she’s probably the only one of them with the slightest hope of passing these exams without help.

Not that that lasted for long, mind you.

Naoto had stepped out of the room for a minute to answer a phone call, and in that space of time Kanji had gotten bored and pulled fabric out from his pockets and started making one of his animal toys, and Rise got tired of the silence and dragged the guitar she has been slowly trying to learn out from its case and started to strum something she hoped would annoy Kanji into speaking.

It doesn’t work. “Hey Kanji,” she calls, “you did tell your mother you were coming here, right?”

“Yeah.” He says, not looking up. He pulls more fabric out of his pockets, and she’s mildly impressed by the amount of stuff he has stashed away on his person. “I don’t think she believed me though.”

“What, that you were going to _Risette’s_ house?”

“No, that I was going to study. She doesn’t know who you are.”

Rise isn’t sure if she should be offended or not by that. It’s not like she expected Kanji’s mother to be particularly in-touch with modern trends, but still…

“Maybe I’ll bring her some CDs next time. Just wait, you’ll be living with a super-fan by next week.”

Kanji looks up finally. “Good luck getting her to play any of it. I’ve been trying to teach her how to use the computer she got for her shop for months.”

The door rattles open again, and they both look up at where Naoto stands frowning at them. Maybe because they abandoned studying so fast, maybe because she’s the only one allowed to be distracted by something other than schoolwork. Hard to know.

“Come to join the fun?” Rise asks. “Kanji has been helping me write a new song.”

“I have?” Kanji asks.

“You two couldn’t concentrate for two minutes?”

“Nah.” Kanji says, looking back to his stitching.

“You’re like, the only one who understands what the questions mean.” Rise says.

She’s not completely lying. She’s not as dumb as people make her out to be. But it was hard to keep up with schoolwork while she was working as an idol, and everyone she was surrounded by kept telling her grades didn’t matter so long as her music was popular. And whoever writes the questions they’ve been answering has a habit of phrasing things in the densest, least comprehensible way.

The words sound less tangled when they’re read out by Naoto’s smooth voice. Call it selfish, call it foolish. But she’s not completely irresponsible.

Rise pats a spot on the floor beside her, and Naoto slowly moves towards it.

“That phone call matter?” Kanji asks. The fabric in his hands is slowly taking shape into what looks like a delicate little fox. Rise wonders if it’s meant for a specific person, or just to add to the small collection of toys being sold in his mother’s shop. It’s still weird, to try to reconcile her image of Kanji to fit this. But for a hidden side, how embarrassing is it really to be talented at something?

“Someone misplaced some paperwork at the station.” Naoto says. “It really wasn’t worth calling over. I don’t know everything that happens there.”

“Can’t you just tell them your schoolwork matters more than their office problems?” Rise says.

Naoto shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t want to come off as unreliable.”

“You can’t solve all their problems for them.” Kanji says. He pulls a stitch too tight, and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously rude under his breath as he undoes it. “Not your job to babysit grown adults.”

“I know.” Naoto says, carefully. She still looks stiff, like she’s on trial, and not sitting on the floor in a friend’s house. She almost looks like one of those robot action figures that Rise knows she secretly collects.

Rise strums a couple of simple chords on her guitar, just to keep her hands busy. She’s still not particularly good at it. And it doesn’t quite fit the image of Risette, to sit still and quietly play an instrument. But even when she had hated Risette, even when she had thrown aside years of work to run away here, she still liked music. Still liked to make it. And like, at this stage, who cares about image, right?

“If they still think your unreliable after all this, that’s their problem.” Rise says. “We think you’re plenty reliable, even if you abandon your friends to answer your phone every two minutes. Right, Kanji?”

“Yeah. A lot of people wouldn’t have even bothered to help us. So. Thanks.”

Naoto fidgets again, breaking her icy posture. At least it seems to be more out of nerves than anything else. Rise would chalk this down as a success.

“T-Thanks.” Naoto says. Rise turns to look at her more. Maybe she should try to stop judging people by their first impressions, but this is another thing she has to reconcile in her head. That the stiff and cold detective who had left such a bad taste in her mouth when she’d first met her could be the same person who could get embarrassed so quickly from such a minor compliment.

It’s really not a surprise that Naoto is so popular at school. That kind of contrast is very alluring.

"Careful." Rise says, laughing. "I might just write something about a pretty little detective if you keep this up."

"I'm not that small." Naoto mumbles.

"So you admit that you're pretty?"

Naoto has her hat pulled low over her face, but Rise can still catch the bright red of her blush. She grins.

"Uh. I'm still here, you know." Kanji says.

“Shh.” Rise says. “You’re just jealous.”

Kanji jerks, and drops what he was working on to the floor. “I am _not_.”

From beside her, Naoto starts to stand. "I'm not going to stay here if your only purpose is to mock me." She says. Rise leans over to grab at her arm before she can go.

"We weren't..." Does intention really matter, she thinks. She probably should have known not to. Prodigal detective or not, Naoto isn't exactly the best at picking up subtlety. And as fun as it may be to make her blush, she’d rather Naoto be here than not. "I'll stop. Promise."

Naoto slowly sits back down, picks up the textbook from where it had been left what feels like hours ago. "Which question were we up to?" she asks, flicking it back open.

“Pretty sure it was question two." Kanji says.

Naoto sighs.


End file.
